I've just read this article about digital publishing. I've noticed a divide in human beings. There are those who are excited by new developments in technology and there are those who are made despondent by them. I seem to be in the latter group. As far as those around me are identifiable, they are almost exclusively in the former group. This fact always gives me the impression that I should not talk about my opinions on the subject, and, in fact, when I do, I am usually greeted with awkward silence, incomprehension, condescension or complete dismissal. When people utter variations of the phrase 'you can't stop progress', there are two things I think: First, human beings have been pretty damned efficient in stopping any spiritual progress in this world, and it's clearly only technological 'progress' they care about and are referring to here. And second, I am reminded of the film The Mission with Jeremy Irons, Robert DeNiro, et cetera. At the end of the film, after the native South American cultures are despoiled by the European invaders, one of the main characters is arguing with another that it should not have been this way. One says, "This is the way the world is." The other says, "Is it the way the world is, or is it the way we have made it?" But it is always assumed that when it comes to technology we have no choice but to take it up. Moreover, and to me inexplicably, people get into an agitated frenzy of excitement at the fact that we have to take it up, you have to take it up, I have to take it up, etc.
Anyway, despite my hesitation about giving my true opinion because in our current age it basically constitutes heresy before it's even articulated or examined, I'll just say a few things. First of all, the author of this blog article talks enthusiastically about a 'Brave New World'. This is characteristic of the embracing of new technology. The quote comes originally from Shakespeare. It was then used, of course, by Aldous Huxley, as the title of his dystopian science fiction novel. Here's an explanation of the phrase, and its irony:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_New_World#Title
Brave New World's ironic title derives from Miranda's speech in Shakespeare's The Tempest, Act V, Scene I:[2]
O wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here! How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world! That has such people in it!
It is interesting to note that this line itself is ironic; Miranda was raised for most of her life on an isolated island, and the only people she ever knew were her father and his servants, an enslaved savage and a spirit. When she sees other people for the first time, she is understandably overcome with excitement, and utters, among other praise, the famous line above. However, what she is actually observing is not men acting in a refined or civilized manner, but rather drunken sailors staggering off the wreckage of their ship.
And this is what I tend to see, people clapping their hands in admiration at drunken sailors staggering off a shipwreck. It is also characteristic of this age that people, not understanding the source of common ironic phrases, use them unconscious of the irony.
Articles such as this, which focus on the survival aspect of publishing, the 'keeping-up-with-the-Joneses' aspect, bring on a feeling of sickness in me that makes me want to quit writing and publishing for good and all. This is not why I started writing, to whip myself into a frenzy of "the dirty feeding".
Now, I could pick on some particular details of the article, but I don't have time at present to pick on many. I have a lot to do today. I'll pick two. Here's the first one:
This explosion of creativity means that Publishing must now learn to embrace the author, whose English and grammar may not be old school, but who has a story to tell and often a new language to tell it in.
There's nothing wrong with having a story to tell and new language to tell it in. There is something wrong, in my opinion, with being sloppy and apathetic. If you read through this article you'll find (or you should find) plenty of instances of poor grammar, logically incoherent sentences and so on. Is this, I wonder, what the author means? Is this an example of the advantages of e-publishing, that fewer editors will mean more careless writing of this kind? Yes, it's entirely forgiveable that there should be some glitches in a blog post (I have to cover my own arse by saying that), but surely the fact that the Internet is so full of poorly constructed, poorly thought out, unedited, often incoherent writing, is something that highlights the strengths of traditional 'gatekeeper' publishing, whatever its drawbacks might be?
In case you think I'm making it up about the mistakes and incoherencies of this article, here's an example:
Collaboration and consensus is always best, but these are no longer acceptable if it takes too long.
How can something be always best, but at the same time "no longer acceptable"? That's my example. There are others.
Now, here's the second detail that I wanted to pick on in what I disagree with in this article:
We may not have more readers today but we certainly have more writers!
Right. And this is a good thing? It's good that the number of writers is rising while the number of readers is declining? It's good that everyone is talking and no one is listening? Really?
I would like to apply the principle here that I read outlined by Lawrence Miles. No one who doesn't care about a particular area should have any say in it. It's my impression that more and more of the world is being taken over by those who don't care about things. Books used to be different. People would read books because they cared about them, and write them because they cared about them. Now it's just because they want to be in on the next technological boom in self-expression. I honestly believe that if we don't already have more writers than readers, we are fast approaching such a situation, and there you have a portrait of the current world's vulgar selfishness. The spectacle presents itself to me like this: There is an old stage on which many famous actors have appeared. Someone has now installed a shiny escalator at the side of the stage. The audience, tired of being an audience, trample each other, scrabbling for the escalator, although few are hurt actually on it, because they can't be bothered to move their legs at this point. Once they gain the stage, they swarm over it. At last they have claimed their right. And they have a double-victory. Not only are they on the stage, but they are there in such weighty and crushing numbers that the stage has collapsed beneath them and they have destroyed the thing they loathed and envied so much
You certainly touch on the raw nerves of several issues here. Firstly, I think you correctly identify that things are rather more ambivalent than they are made out to be by techno-enthusiasts. But this is a separate issue from whether things are being determined by technology. Change does not have to be understood to be ‘progressive’ for it to be inevitable. Or rather, ‘progress’ (which etymologically implies only moving forward) does not have to have a positive connotation. I genuinely believe it is literally impossible to go backwards in these matters. Even if we returned to an earlier age of technology deliberately, it wouldn’t be the same way things used to be, precisely because it would have been chosen deliberately. I have a great deal of nostalgia for the way things used to be, but we can no more go back to an earlier epoch than I can turn my age back to make myself 10 again.So, yes, progress is a mixed blessing but it defines the limits within which we can work. Now, the question of the reader-writer ratio is one which I think could develop in all kinds of ways. It seems nothing can stop the explosion of self-publishing online, and even in print-on-demand. But this does not mean that what is read will diffuse accordingly. Just because more people are publishing does not mean that we will read more people. Indeed, in this confusion I can imagine that people will retreat back to the canon. Due to the profusion of free out-of-copyright classics online, I find myself reading a lot of such stuff, even though as a general rule I find any prose written before about 1920 to be horribly baroque. Of course, there is still a great tendency for people to read crap, but ’twas ever thus, and I’m not aware of any decent antidote to this.
Originally posted by mgkelly:I have a great deal of nostalgia for the way things used to be, but we can no more go back to an earlier epoch than I can turn my age back to make myself 10 again.Nodding in agreement. Living in the past is pointless.Originally posted by mgkelley:Of course, there is still a great tendency for people to read crap, but ’twas ever thus,ummm… “this sounds like a generalization. Originally posted by mgkelley:and I’m not aware of any decent antidote to this. for whom?
Originally posted by lokutus-prime:Originally posted by mgkelley:Of course, there is still a great tendency for people to read crap, but ’twas ever thus,ummm… “this sounds like a generalization. I will write more here later. For the moment, just wanted to defend this. I think, if the statement had been, “Everyone always reads crap” that could fairly be called a generalisation in the sense of ‘and therefore misleading’. But when the word ‘tendency’ is used this already means something like, ‘in general terms’, therefore it’s a self-evident and not misleading generalisation.As a ‘rule of thumb’ comment, I’d say it’s also true.There’s the question of how to define crap, of course – well, that’s the difficult part, though I have, of course, tried all my life to define crap.
Originally posted by quentincrisp: As a ‘rule of thumb’ comment, I’d say it’s also true. ‘a rule of thumb’ is a broadly accurate guide or principle, based on experience or practice.. although your friend did not qualify the statement by saying it was ‘rule of thumb’ comment. Thank you for letting me put my opinion[/quote] Originally posted by quentincrisp:There’s the question of how to define crap, of course – well, that’s the difficult part, though I have, of course, tried all my life to define crap. I think crap is one of those words that is easier to recognize than to define, but I also think it is safe to say that some of us (many of us?) will know what we mean when we use that word.[/quote]
That “Brave New World” article is terrible.Today is less about quality and more about the width.I’m not sure what he means by “the width”. If he means that the production values of Youtube programmes are lower than those of television, but that the content of the programmes is often more informative, interesting, accurate, and so on, I agree — television nowadays is dire.Today the line between content and context is blurred.I wish I could come up with stuff like this. I could have been an independent consultant, touching base with other self-facilitating media nodes, pushing the envelope of blue-sky thinking to synergise paradigm shifts in the field of impenetrable sloganeering. Or something.”We talk a lot about watching and learning from other media sectors yet we appear to have not even seen or understood music’s MTV moment.What is the sound of one hand clapping? etc..Anyway, I think it’s probably too early to gauge the effects of e-readers. I suppose I take the optimistic view that many of the people who are buying them are not voracious readers, and that e-readers may make reading literature more socially acceptable, in the same way that things like Twitter have made sitting in a darkened room fiddling with a computer more socially acceptable.
Okay, I’ve been working all weekend trying to meet some deadlines, just taking tea-breaks here and there. This will be another break, and I’ll try and make a few general comments in response to the other comments here.Originally posted by mgekelly:Firstly, I think you correctly identify that things are rather more ambivalent than they are made out to be by techno-enthusiasts. But this is a separate issue from whether things are being determined by technology. Change does not have to be understood to be ‘progressive’ for it to be inevitable. Or rather, ‘progress’ (which etymologically implies only moving forward) does not have to have a positive connotation. I genuinely believe it is literally impossible to go backwards in these matters.I’m glad you use the word ‘ambivalent’, because I think that’s how I feel. Also, before writing this blog post, I did have a rather fatalistic feeling that there was really no point in doing so. So, why did I? Just because I had something to say, I suppose. If you can live to some extent according to values that are important to you, I think it doesn’t matter if those values do not become widespread. In other words, it’s worth holding to them, internally and externally, anyway. Another thing that occurred to me is the difference between progress and change. One thing you certainly cannot stop, and which it is probably undesirable to stop, is change. This happens simply with the passage of time, as a physical law, it seems. Progress… I suppose there must be a cultural connotation to progress (if we take it to mean from negative to positive). If I’m not against change (because that would be truly futile, apart from anything else), if I sometimes resist what other people call ‘progress’, it’s because I wish that this progress were not so one-sided. If I really thought that we were moving into a world where people were valuing creativity more in a healthy way, why on Earth would I object to a simple tool of creativity like e-publishing? BUT, the very fact that even the apostles of e-books can recognise that we are in danger of having more writers than readers indicates that we are not making progress here at all, or, to put it another way, the progress is one-sided and has nothing really to do with nurturing creativity.To illustrate this further, the whole thrust of the article is not about the content of creativity, what great things are happening within the writing scene at the moment, the new styles and concepts and voices – none of that is mentioned. No, what is emphasised is simply that we must all accept this new technology if we want to survive. That sounds to me more like a threat than anything else, even though it’s disguised as a celebration.I think that anyone who knows me realises that I’ve been one of the keenest opponents of the ‘gatekeeping’ aspect of traditional publishing, which condemns real talent to a wasteland. And I think my work with Chomu is testament to this. But the main thrust has to be about valuing the content and the people who produce that content, not scrabbling madly to adapt at any cost to a new technological trend.In brief, although I have strong aesthetic objections to the technology, it’s not so much the technology itself as the attitudes of those most vociferously advocating it that I have trouble with.Originally posted by lesoldatperdu:Anyway, I think it’s probably too early to gauge the effects of e-readers. I suppose I take the optimistic view that many of the people who are buying them are not voracious readers, and that e-readers may make reading literature more socially acceptable, in the same way that things like Twitter have made sitting in a darkened room fiddling with a computer more socially acceptable.Thinking back to ancient China, one of the earliest literate areas of the world, I imagine them (probably erroneously) sitting around sipping salty tea, scribbling philosophical epigrams and poems about courting ducks in the nearby river on bits of bamboo leaf. They leave their picnic, and someone picks up the leaves later. They are not signed. There is no copyright anyway. Many leaves are collected. They are sewn together into a book. It is attributed to Laozu. Etc.Things are different now, of course. I guess that in those days, if you were literate, you were really literate. Still, in some sense, even though we’re entering a period of chaos, I do have a kind of faith that literature can’t really die.
This is tangentially, or perhaps more than tangentially related to some of what’s been said here. This is a clip of Paul Foot apparently getting “booed off” the stage:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hJBIC-SSOU&feature=relatedI saw Paul Foot last night and he was excellent. The clip is quite long, there is a room full of people chanting aggressively and mean-spiritedly, but there is one guy standing on the stage who has balls bigger than all of them, and he’s not getting off the stage for these jackals.If you look at the comments, actually a lot of people find this clip as distasteful as I do, and I think that the comments are generally intelligent. However this comment is not:”Education is dictated by money, not intelligence.Just sayin’.”I think the expression “just sayin'” is currently the expression I loathe most in the world, and anyone who uses it should actually get a pick-axe in the brain immediately. But for someone to effectively say, “I’m fick cause I’ve got no money”… you already know that no amount of money would buy them education.
I’m of the type who thinks change just happens and there ain’t nothin’ can be done about it. After civilization began, it was all downhill from there. I’m fatalistic about progress. I embrace it until civilization collapses. I’m curious where it will lead before then.I bought a Kindle for various reasons, but my original reason was that I wanted something to replace my electronic dictionary. I still buy some physical books, not as much as I used to though. It’s a good thing because I was running out of room in my apartment.By the way, why does “just sayin'” irritate you so much? I would assume it originates from American English. I’ve used the phrase “just sayin'” on occasion. I just find it amusing to say. It’s silly and stupid.As I read your blog post, I must admit I felt some gut response to defend the world wide web. It’s ‘democracy’ in all of it’s beauty and ugliness. As Freck said in A Scanner Darkly, “Well, I like it.”In early America, the government gave subsidies to presses so that it would be cheaper to publish newspapers and books. This would also meant more opportunities for writers. Of course, not everyone had a newspaper column like people now have blogs. But I’m sure the average published writing back then wasn’t all that well edited. I was wondering about this. It would be an interesting analysis to look at first editions of books across the centuries to find out when writing was the most well edited according to the standard grammar of the time period.Having more writers does create more chaos. Even so, I’d point out that (since you were blogging about VALIS) I’m with PKD in having faith in chaos and the good it can safeguard. The corrolary to chaos is innovation. Every age of innovation began with the crumbling of the previous age. We can’t know if it will lead to progress or destruction, but either way it can’t be avoided.
Originally posted by MarmaladeINFP:By the way, why does “just sayin'” irritate you so much? I would assume it originates from American English. I’ve used the phrase “just sayin'” on occasion. I just find it amusing to say. It’s silly and stupid.Hello.I’ll start with this one.In all or most of the instances I’ve heard it used, I pick up the following connotation: “I’m right and all I have to do is say this simple thing to demonstrate that I am, but I will pretend that I’ve just casually let slip something that demolishes the entire edifice of your argument.”Again, in all or most of the instances I’ve heard it used, as if the above connotation were not bad enough, it has been used by people who don’t know what they’re talking about, so that it also has the added connotation of, “I’m ignorant, and insufferably smug with it.”But I suppose it doesn’t have to have these connotations. It certainly seems to in the case that I’ve quoted.Originally posted by MarmaladeINFP:Having more writers does create more chaos. Even so, I’d point out that (since you were blogging about VALIS) I’m with PKD in having faith in chaos and the good it can safeguard. On the whole I’m more sympathetic to chaos than order, as anyone who’s visited my flat can probably testify, but I think I’m most sympathetic of all to benign chaos – that is, self-regulating chaos of the idyllic kind which seems to be championed in the Dao De Jing, etc.I don’t like kindle, and I continue not to like kindle, perhaps even more the more my knowledge of it increases. The argument that is always raised with any new technology, when anyone objects, is basically that “it’s all good” or “you can’t stop change”. But the same argument is never used in the case of politics. In politics, the points themselves are generally argued, and people, however stupid their decisions may be as related to the points, hardly ever just revert to “all change is good and/or inevitable.” So why do this with technology, which is, after all, as much of human manufacture as politics? I think people have been hypnotised into thinking technology is inevitable and has a kind of universal objectivity to it, in other words, that it doesn’t have cultural implications or cultural bias. But all technologies have cultural implications and biases. Someone has made a decision somewhere to switch tracks to this or that thing.
Originally posted by MarmaladeINFP:Having more writers does create more chaos. Even so, I’d point out that (since you were blogging about VALIS) I’m with PKD in having faith in chaos and the good it can safeguard. The corrolary to chaos is innovation. Every age of innovation began with the crumbling of the previous age. We can’t know if it will lead to progress or destruction, but either way it can’t be avoided.Just want to come back to this. Of course, I’ve answered it to some degree, but had some other thoughts.I think that PKD must have been at least ambivalent towards chaos. In Valis, he identifies ananke, or ‘blind chance’ (also translated as ‘necessity’, or could that be ‘you can’t stop change’?), as a symptom of evil in the universe, and generally seems to equate rationality and order with good.It has to be said, I tend not to equate ‘rationality’ with good, but usually with a kind of overbearing chauvinism, but I can see that people have different understandings of the word.Grant Morrisson gave a kind of talk (I understand he is much influenced by Dick) about… well, the evolution of consciousness, etc., and at one point he says, “Either you trust nature or you don’t.” The implication is that there is no “human versus nature” and that everything that happens is therefore natural and therefore good. I feel that I’m generally sympathetic to Morrisson, and a lot of what I think about is in the area that he is also interested in. However, there’s a flaw in the statement “Either you trust nature or you don’t.” The flaw is this: it is irresponsible. It does not take into account free will.Now, there are various mystical traditions that say we’re all one, etc., but they always seem to say that somehow we’re out of tune with the fact that we’re all one. How can this be?For instance, if we look at the statement, “You’re trying to control things too much.” Well, wait a minute – we are ‘things’. So, if we’re trying to control them that gives us two possible scenarios: We have no free will, and therefore it’s not even up to us whether we try to control things or not, because things are controlling us first.Or, we have free will, in which case, we can’t help but try to control things, because basically, with free will, we must make a choice, and to make a choice is to attempt control.People accept free will in politics and other areas of life, so why not in technology? It seems to me that there is something about the way that technology is sold to us that detroys our sense of free will.What we must accept – or are forced to accept – however, is that our small attempts to control things, the exertions of our individual will, are not the only factors at work. There are all kinds of steering forces, and many people have had the mystical insight (I’m not sure it’s been explicated rationally, though perhaps it has) that for any one will to be entirely in control is bad.This is why, I think, some of us, however much we may complain that it’s ridiculous that just anyone is allowed to have children, nonetheless recoil at eugenics, since it is an attempt to limit the controlling factors to a narrower range, at the most basic human level of whether a genetic line should continue or not.Eugenics was ‘progress’ and a new idea once. Should we have accepted it merely on those terms? It was accepted, in places and for a while. It fell out of fashion. It’s possible that it will be revived in a different form – genetic modification. And no doubt, again, some people will try to make their own vision inevitable by saying ‘you can’t stop progress’.I think everything I’ve said still stands. If there were concomitant spritual or social progress, technological progress would be simply useful, possibly irrelevant, probably harmless. But I don’t think that genetic modification, for instance, will represent true progress, because it will be an amplification of the steering will of a number of individuals in order to wipe from existence the possibility of certain other steering wills.Similarly, I don’t see Kindle as a form of real progress, since what it does is allow people who don’t care about books and literature to call the shots. We don’t really know what will happen, and I hope the outcome ends up being more positive than negative, but I honestly don’t see much that’s positive coming out of it at the moment. Reading is already one of the most egalitarian of cultural media. It is an open university. Now, however, Amazon have got the thin end of their wedge into reading, and I’m rather afraid (this seems to be the direction), that before long, Amazon (with Kindle) will be saying, “All those who want to come to reading, must do so by me, and my technology. All those who want to come to writing, must do so by me, and my technology. Keep up. Plug in. Buy the next model.”Now, is that a picture of attractive chaos? Frankly, I loathe Kindle.
I ended up a very long response. I decided to make a post out of it and put it in my own blog. If you so desire, here it is:http://benjamindavidsteele.wordpress.com/2011/07/11/the-democracy-of-e-books/
I wanted to add a comment about my response. I realize that you feel strongly about this, so strongly in fact that you feel loathing. I have opinions on the matter, but no loathing in any direction. Like most people, I’m probably indifferent about technology. If it’s there, I use it. But if it’s not there, I don’t think about it. I’ve never owned a cell phone. It might piss you off for me to admit that I’m actually proud to own a Kindle while not owning a cell phone. However, I don’t loathe cell phones either. I’ve never owned a car or a house, and I don’t loathe houses or cars or the people who own them.I neither love nor hate progress. Certainly, I like anything that makes my life easier and more enjoyable which is sometimes the result of progress, technological or otherwise.I do feel a bit bewildered by your strong response of loathing. Maybe I’m just too depressed and apathetic to feel strong emotions like that. I take that back. I do occasionally feel loathing but maybe it’s just more general. As a general principle, I stand by the view that life sucks. I’ve every now and then have made the claim that this world is a living hell. The Kindle seems like small potatoes to me, but we each have our own complaints and pet peeves. Such things aren’t ultimately rational per se, even if we may be able to give them rational form. No one can tell you that you shouldn’t loathe Kindle.Anyway, I was just wanting to say that I wasn’t trying to piss you off. I do have an opinion, but as they say: Opinions are like assholes…
Originally posted by MarmaladeINFP:Anyway, I was just wanting to say that I wasn’t trying to piss you off. I do have an opinion, but as they say: Opinions are like assholes…Don’t worry, you didn’t. I think what I’ve written is actually pretty reasonable, but I won’t reiterate now. Might write more later, or not.
Originally posted by MarmaladeINFP:I ended up a very long response. I decided to make a post out of it and put it in my own blog. If you so desire, here it is:Okay, I read it. I don’t have time to comment much at the moment, as I’m working. Maybe later.
There are also questions about what literature has to do with education, whether it has anything to do with it at all, whether education is a universal good, etc. But these are more than I can address at the moment, if I ever do.
Okay, I’m just going to briefly address some of the points in your blog post. I’ll do it here, if I may.The problem you seem to be perceiving is that as the masses gain more freedom then more specific groups lose their monopoly on specific areas. When everyone can be a writer, everyone can influence the culture of writing, not just ‘professional’ published authors. Writing is no longer an elite profession. The internet and other new technologies have democratized writing and empowered the average person. And:Right now, even poor people can access some kind of device that allows them to access the entire world’s library of public domain literature. I see that as a good thing.I do not look down on people who cannot read. I am annoyed by people who have the education to be able to read, but don’t, because in our culture, to care about such things has the (I think ridiculous) taint of being elitist.In other words the arguments often used by such people against people like me are similar to what you’re saying, suggesting that I want to keep education and opportunities from people. I don’t.I would actually like to live in a world with more literacy. In countries where literacy rates are not high, my impression is that literacy is valued more than it is in the first world. I suppose I might be wrong, but we do hear about people who are struggling to be educated, whereas education, in the first world – certainly in the west – is despised.In other words, if anything – if what I’m saying is true – then I’m less elitist than the people who would call me elitist, because my valuing of literacy and education is similar to that of those who are struggling to be educated.This may even have something to do with my background. I certainly did not go to anything like a distinguished school, and I learnt very little there. I’m not going to go into detail about my family background, but like many people I know, I was in the first generation in my family to attend university. I actually feel like most of what I have learnt, I’ve taught myself – the state school I attended was next to useless. So, I see education in very broad terms, and not just tied to the institutions of education.If you need it – I suspect you don’t – I can find an article on a recent report that shows a decline in literacy in UK schoolchildren. Is this empowerment? Or would it be more empowering for them if our culture actually valued literacy and taught them to read and write?What I am afraid of in publishing is not that people who have never been published before will be published – a cause that I have selectively championed myself – but simply that the same attitude that seems to think it’s elitist to teach children to read and write will now also hold sway in literature and create an overall tone of it being elitist to care about quality, originality, talent and so on.As to whether writing is a profession or not (even aside from the question of elitism), I would say, and many would agree with me, that, for fiction, at least, it’s a vocation first, and, if you’re lucky and that way inclined, also a profession. Should it be an elite profession? Well, to this extent at least, I think: to the extent that it should, in my view, still be possible for it to be a distinct profession rather than just ‘something that everyone does’. This is where the standard about ‘only those who care about something should have a say in it’ can be applied. I say, ‘can be applied’, but of course, there’s no way to apply such a standard that is both practical and desirable, and maybe no way that is either of those two things. In this case, it is merely the expression of my own attitude.It could be that I am worrying about nothing – it would not be the first time. However, my remarks in this case were provoked by a particular article. I just think that there is a baby in this particular bathwater the existence of which should be noted so that the former doesn’t get thrown out with the latter.If I had the time, there’s actually a lot to respond to in your own article. I wanted to make a note of the above, anyway. As you also remark, our attitudes are probably not so far apart, anyway, and I don’t feel a strong need to split hairs over much of it, or take issue. I think the above is the main thing I wanted to make clear.
I never said that you “look down on people who cannot read.” As for being annoyed by literate people choosing not to read, I’m not sure who your annoyance is directed at. I’d say most people in the West read regularly, but they may not be reading what you think they should read. Many people read pulp fiction, magazines, newspapers, and blogs. I don’t know of any data about whether the reading of literature is increasing or decreasing, but higher education has increased over the past century and it’s in college where many people begin reading literature.”In other words the arguments often used by such people against people like me are similar to what you’re saying, suggesting that I want to keep education and opportunities from people. I don’t.”I didn’t sugget you wanted any of that. I was merely pointing out that new technology has made reading material, including literature, more widely available to people who formerly had little to no such availability. E-readers and e-reader software for computers will more likely than not increase the number of readers. I don’t see any reason or data to lead me to conclude that making reading material more available would decrease the number of readers.”the same attitude that seems to think it’s elitist to teach children to read and write will now also hold sway in literature and create an overall tone of it being elitist to care about quality, originality, talent and so on.”I don’t think it’s elitist to teach children to read and write. I don’t think it’s elitist to care about quality, originality, talent and so on. I truly doubt most Kindle owners think that way either. Looking at the data on Kindle owners, as I recall, most are older and well educated. People don’t buy Kindles for reading comic books or watching videos as it’s a simple black/white dedicated reading device. Most people read books on their Kindle, not blogs, and the books most Kindle owners read probably aren’t pulp fiction, not that there is anything wrong with pulp fiction. The iPad and other devices are way bigger threat to your values than the Kindle could ever hope to be.”As to whether writing is a profession or not (even aside from the question of elitism), I would say, and many would agree with me, that, for fiction, at least, it’s a vocation first, and, if you’re lucky and that way inclined, also a profession. Should it be an elite profession? Well, to this extent at least, I think: to the extent that it should, in my view, still be possible for it to be a distinct profession rather than just ‘something that everyone does’.”Why can’t it be both. I tend to try to avoid black/white analyses and win/lose scenarios, as I’m sure you do as well. If both readers and writers are increasing (I see no evidence to the contrary), then there can simultaneously be a literary profession and a general writing population. The question of whether these should or will remain distinct is a separate issue. As long as the publishing industry remains profitable, the distinction will probably remain (between those who do and don’t write for money.I feel you’re responding to something that I don’t perceive. As I don’t perceive it, I don’t know how to respond to your concerns as you perceive them.There are, however, a few issues I do perceive as underlying our experience of conflict.I was wondering about literacy rates. I can’t speak for the UK as I’m not familiar with the data there. I was specifically wondering about this in terms of your claim there is becoming more writers than readers. Obviously, there an increasing number of people writing publicly (rather than just privately in terms of diaries and such), but most of those people are only read by a few close friends and family or other similar-minded people. I couldn’t begin to guess the number of writers to readers in the newer media.The tricky part is how to analyze the data. In the US and around the world, there has been a publishing boom over the last decade. More books are have been printed in recent years than ever before. However, this doesn’t necessarily mean more readers. Maybe it just means there are more people buying books than checking them out from libraries. I don’t know. Either way, it wouldn’t seem to imply a decrease of readers.Let me return to the question of how many people can read rather than how many choose to read. In the US, the data is confusing as ways of measurement have changed over time. Going the data I’ve seen, US literacy rates are relatively high compared to most other countries and they’ve remained stable. And, over the past century or so, they’ve certainly increased vastly, especially in certain demographics. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literacy#Literacy_in_North_America“In 1870, 20 percent of the entire adult population was illiterate, and 80 percent of the black population was illiterate. By 1900 the situation had improved somewhat, but still 44 percent of blacks remained illiterate. The statistical data show significant improvements for black and other races in the early portion of the 20th century as the former slaves who had no educational opportunities in their youth were replaced by younger individuals who grew up in the post Civil War period and often had some chance to obtain a basic education. The gap in illiteracy between white and black adults continued to narrow through the 20th century, and in 1979 the rates were about the same.”However, Canada for some reason apparently is having a slight decline.”The literacy rate of Canada, being almost 99% in 2003, has declined, and will be under world’s average literacy rates for adults in the next two decades, depending on the rate of declining.”Looking globally, Africa and Asia have seen the greatest improvements, but they were starting from a very low point.http://www.warriorlibrarian.com/CURRICULUM/global_literacy.htmlI did check out data on US education a while back. It has even been improving in recent years.http://benjamindavidsteele.wordpress.com/2011/02/15/us-education-myth-vs-reality-new-data/However, US data may be very different than British data. Also, there is the question of the relationship between literacy and education and between formal education and a broader sense of education. Do Western societies encourage people to read and learn?I was wondering also about the relation to immigration rates. If people from countries with high illiteracy rates immigrate to Western countries, then some of those Western countries may experience an increase in illiteracy as a result. But there are also many other possible reasons. There have been massive and complex changes in recent history involving demographics, culture and politics.I have an internet friend from Ghana. He is impressed that many Americans seem (from his observations) to enjoy reading nonfiction on their own. He said he is impressed because most people in his country don’t value learning. If they read, they just read pulp fiction. The literacy rates in Ghana are relatively low, but higher than other countries in Africa. I don’t know if his observations are accurate or meaningful or if they can be generalized.From my perspective, this gets into very confusing areas that aren’t easy to make conclusions about. It’s hard to put e-books and changing technology into the mix.Where we diverge is in our focus of concern. I’m not really concerned about publishing as I’m not a publisher or a published writer. I am, however, concerned about writing as a writer, concerned about reading as a reader, concerned about the availability of material as someone who likes to learn and sate my curiosity, concerned about easy and affordable accessibility as someone who is of limited means. I’m someone who spends vast amount of time reading and writing. I don’t personally profit off of any of it, but it’s obvious someone is profiting off of me. WordPress offers a free service which they do so because they profit off of my freely given writing. Google also profits by putting ads on my writing. I get on average around 100 clicks a day, how many those actually read I don’t know. I’ve dedicated my life to reading and writing. So, to me, my opinions are valid and meaningful, despite my not being a publisher or published.All I care about is that I have the opportunity to read and write, and to interact with others who read and write. Also, I want such opportunities to increase to more people around the world. How that is achieved is less of a concern to me. However, to you, it’s a great concern. We have different concerns.
Originally posted by MarmaladeINFP: I’ve dedicated my life to reading and writing. So, to me, my opinions are valid and meaningful, despite my not being a publisher or published.Yes, I wouldn’t include you in the category of those who don’t care.Originally posted by MarmaladeINFP:I’m someone who spends vast amount of time reading and writing. I don’t personally profit off of any of it, but it’s obvious someone is profiting off of me.I’d like to see writers be able to profit more from what they do, not less. Availability of work for readers is also an issue – more availability is generally better. If this ever gets to a point or is done in a way that writers can no longer write, or creates a situation close to that, to me it’s a problem.Originally posted by MarmaladeINFP:I feel you’re responding to something that I don’t perceive. As I don’t perceive it, I don’t know how to respond to your concerns as you perceive them.It seems so. I suppose that a number of elements have aligned in my life to create an ‘issue’ in this for me. I was thinking about this the other day and tracing the development of that issue in my life. It’s a bit early in the morning, and in fact I have to go out today so can’t write at length, but from the beginning, Kindle has felt to me like someone coming into my room and messing with my bookshelf, not because they care about me or my bookshelf, or books generally, but just because they are keen on ‘the latest thing’. The people who are into the latest thing have the whole rest of the world to play with, and it’s felt to me like, ‘Not this, too! Why?’ Also note above that I’ve said it’s not the technology so much as the attitudes of its most vociferous advocates that I don’t like. I feel like Kindle is being forced on me. Kindle, as I have observed, often comes packaged with the idea that books are bad. It’s designed to kill books by infiltrating the world of books with the mentality of faddism. Once books are infected by faddism, they’re dead. That’s basically how it seems to me. I also notice that people don’t like me not liking Kindle. Why? Is such a point of view no longer an option? Plenty of people don’t like books, and, believe it or not, I don’t try to police that opinion. In other words, the more people insist that I should like Kindle (or rather, that I’m not allowed to dislike it), the more likely I am to detest it.Originally posted by MarmaladeINFP:Why can’t it be both. It can. I used the word “just” to make the distinction. Nothing wrong with it being both. None of these things are absolute (hopefully), but there are particular absolutes I hope we don’t get too near.Originally posted by MarmaladeINFP:I didn’t sugget you wanted any of that. I felt that some of what you wrote read that way, but I accept that you didn’t mean it that way.Originally posted by MarmaladeINFP:I never said that you “look down on people who cannot read.”No, but that was my starting point for trying to explain my attitude. In other words, it’s those who can care but choose not to because it’s not cool or because it’s elitist to care who annoy me.Originally posted by MarmaladeINFP:As for being annoyed by literate people choosing not to read, I’m not sure who your annoyance is directed at. Haha. Well, do you want names? I might lose some friends. Honestly, I know lots of educated people who don’t read, and who even have an observable attitude of ‘not holding with book learning’, which is ridiculous.I should say that, I don’t necessarily believe in ‘rights’, or rather, I think rights are manufactured. As Dazai wrote, there’s no point in saying to someone, “Well, you should like it.” But then again, I still feel up against an attitude generally in the world that I am in some way elitist, and this very much rubs me up the wrong way, because I think it is perversely applied. Sorry if that’s incoherent – early in the morning, as I said.I’m aware of this becoming a kind of debate, and latterly I don’t believe in debates. They’re like those steel ballbearing executive toy things that can only go back and forth endlessly. The ‘debating societies’ of school and university are a game. I’m not trying to win an argument, I simply have a point of view. It’s even possible it will change. But it won’t change if I have to go on defending it, because all I’ll be conscious of is defending, and I won’t have the mental space to meditate on things. I’m only saying this to indicate that I might not respond very immediately or in detail on this issue now, as I’d rather actually think about what’s been said than immediately jump in again to defend my position. All that you’ve written is thought-provoking, so I’d like to actually consider it.
By the way, I happened across the comments made by my internet friend from Ghana. Here they are:http://benjamindavidsteele.wordpress.com/2011/02/01/columbia-goddess-of-america/#comment-1807“By the way, you guys have an extensive array of authors and a big love for writers, I think? The kinds of books produced are almost like textbooks but you for instance read them non-scholarly or outside of school (hope you catch my drift cos for you, I can’t say leisurely). Around here, you’d catch most of us reading novels, that’d be our more motivating area for writing. But, for you guys, or is it you in particular, textbook-like books are published for the general public. Even Jung’s ‘Psych Types’ was published like any normal book. It intrigues me”http://benjamindavidsteele.wordpress.com/2011/02/01/columbia-goddess-of-america/#comment-1810″We have not had a written language for a long time, we got one fairly recently, about the 19th century. We are mostly oral people. But, that way, most of our history has been eroded. People don’t usually read non-fiction outside school. Plus, people are so terrified of their society, the church, the social environment, that they fear any contrarian acts on their part. Most people are more concerned about money and survival than anything, a situation common between you and me and the world. It smacks of a sloth that annoys me. No self-development, no self-exploration to contribute to self-development. Everything is specialised, when you need spiritual advice, go to the church. That’s what I say, they just learn these things, it’s memory work, and then they want to practise at face-value. With time then, the entire value of the concept is depreciated as each generation’s practice becomes sort of the concept of the next. If not so, it might influence some reaction. All the same, the thing gets watered down.”We do have authors but they aren’t many. Many too, just don’t like reading and materialism is numbing everyone, it’s at the pulpits, in cots, in schools, everywhere. The cowards of the 21st century. Phooey”http://benjamindavidsteele.wordpress.com/2011/02/01/columbia-goddess-of-america/#comment-1814″I think specialisation is everywhere esp where society is hardened or has become preoccupied narrowly with tradition or where the preoccupation is with survival or achievement, still, in this case, narrowly. After all, specialisation begins in the home, the first society, no the organism itself is a society. Even at cellular level, specialisation exists. Wow, I just saw the link between Jung’s balancing out and cell aging. Interesting, but I think something like that already exists but not necessarily in relation to aging.”People are reading but it’s mostly what I’d call survival reading, just like school. They just want to learn something that they can use to gain something. Things like business books, motivationals but no matter how cerebral the material, it doesn’t go deep, no fundamental changes. This is no intro/extra matter cos they do it in equal measure.”
Originally posted by quentinscrisp:I’d like to see writers be able to profit more from what they do, not less. Availability of work for readers is also an issue – more availability is generally better. If this ever gets to a point or is done in a way that writers can no longer write, or creates a situation close to that, to me it’s a problem.Here is an issue. How does an economy and a society reward quality writing? How much profit is there in quality writing? If there isn’t (or not always, anyway) profit in quality writing, how does society encourage quality writing? Better public education? More public libraries?Artists in general have always had difficulty making money. There are tons of stories of musicians that made little money even as the music company that produced and promoted them made tons of money. A similar problem used to exist with actors as well. For example, the actors of Gilligan’s Island never made much money, despite the show making massive profits over decades.This problem continues, but it’s not always clear. Do I have a right to profit off of my own writing? Or to put it a different way, do massive corporations have a right to profit off of my writing when I make no profit at all? I don’t worry about such things. I have a job. I get by. Bust still it’s something to think about. There are some posts of mine that have had thousands of views, one of which is long and detailed enough that I could turn it into a book.YouTube has allowed video makers to profit off of their channels by becoming partners. And YouTube has helped to promote some talents that might otherwise remained in obscurity. We can, of course, thank YouTube for Justin Beiber… okay, bad example.Originally posted by quentinscrisp:Also note above that I’ve said it’s not the technology so much as the attitudes of its most vociferous advocates that I don’t like. I feel like Kindle is being forced on me. Kindle, as I have observed, often comes packaged with the idea that books are bad. It’s designed to kill books by infiltrating the world of books with the mentality of faddism. Once books are infected by faddism, they’re dead. That’s basically how it seems to me. I also notice that people don’t like me not liking Kindle. Why? Is such a point of view no longer an option? Plenty of people don’t like books, and, believe it or not, I don’t try to police that opinion. In other words, the more people insist that I should like Kindle (or rather, that I’m not allowed to dislike it), the more likely I am to detest it.I did have a negative emotional reaction, but it was in response to your negative emotional reaction. Your ‘loathing’ hit me wrong. It seemed an odd emotion to apply to an e-reader. I feel loathing toward land mines. I feel loathing toward strip mining. I feel loathing toward sociopathic politicians. But I couldn’t imagine myself loathing something like a Kindle.I get that we have different stakes in this issue. E-readers directly challenge the publishing industry as you know it. So, maybe loathing makes perfect sense considering the impact you personally experience in your life and your profession.I’m not sure I know what you mean when you say that, “It’s designed to kill books by infiltrating the world of books with the mentality of faddism.” What is a mentality of faddism? And how is it designed to kill books? Who wants to kill books? And why? You obviously see yourself losing out (or potentially losing out) on the changes that are occurring. But who do you think gains by all of this?I am curious to know what you think about the publishing boom of the last decade. It was a weird phenomena considering the increase of technology. There were a couple of obvious reasons for it.First, Oprah had her book club. She encouraged many people to read who otherwise wouldn’t have read. She even got people to read Cormac McCarthy who doesn’t write books that are light reading.Second, J.K. Rowling created a massively popular book series. She encouraged a new generation of technophiles to read traditional physical books. Rowling also has her own website now where she is selling her own e-books. She might set an example for other authors. The new e-book format might allow more independence for authors, maybe similar to how some bands have decided to become independent instead of using a major label to promote them.Do you think you could do something similar as J.K. Rowling? You already have web presence to some extent. I’m willing to bet more people read your blog than your books for the simple reason your blog is easily accessible and widely available. Couldn’t you have a website where you sell your own e-books in all formats instead of selling through a major corporation like Amazon? If you found e=book formats were increasing the numbers of readers you have and increased your income, would that make you feel more positive toward e-readers?
I also notice that people don’t like me not liking Kindle. Why? Is such a point of view no longer an option? Plenty of people don’t like books, and, believe it or not, I don’t try to police that opinion. In other words, the more people insist that I should like Kindle (or rather, that I’m not allowed to dislike it), the more likely I am to detest it.I’m going out. Talk to you later.
I don’t know when I’ll next have a chance to write at any length here, but just wanted to make a note of the following because it is obviously relevant. I’ve been in the company of two teachers today, amongst other people. One of them, a teacher of English for many years in the UK reported that education has changed generally for the worse in this country. Things may be better for those at the very low end of literacy struggling to be literate, and if so, of course this is good, but for those not at the low end, literacy has actually plummeted. Nothing to do with immigration, everything to do with attitudes and school agendas. He made some further comments, which I found to be of interest. Everything now is about ‘targets’ rather than content. He is monitored and if his lessons don’t cater for an agenda of fun and fifteen minute attention spans, he has to change everything to suit the pupils’ boredom threshold. As he said to me, nothing of any value in life has come to him without effort, but the agenda in schools at the moment is that it’s bad to make the pupils make any effort. Of course, this cuts out the bridge to anything that is beyond the fifteen-minute or lower attention span.We had a long conversation, which I won’t go into here.Later, I spoke to a lecturer who independently said, out of the blue, that he was tired of students who were completely unable to write a coherent sentence.This is a reality over here – no idea about the States. And it’s distressing to be called an elitist because you happen to care about this – to care about anything, in fact.I’ll try to get back to some of what you’ve written later, but don’t know when that will be as it looks like I have a lot of work on for a while.
Here are some links. It’s interesting to compare the information in the first with what I was told by the teacher I spoke to yesterday:Children from the poorest homes are doing worse in basic literacy tests than three years ago.New research published today paints the worrying picture of growing numbers of disadvantaged children leaving primary school unable to master the basics of reading, writing and arithmetic.http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/three-in-five-of-the-poorest-11yearolds-lack-basic-literacy-2311642.htmlHere are some other links:Libraries under threat:http://www.publiclibrariesnews.com/p/cuts-and-closures-by-local-authority.htmlPoor spelling harms business in the UK:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-14130854Bookshops folding:Speak to most independent retailers, publishers, agents or authors and one factor is blamed for this radical change: the abolition of the Net Book Agreement (NBA) in 1995. Brought into force in 1900, the NBA was an arrangement between publishers and booksellers that ensured books could not be offered at discounted prices. In 1962, some booksellers challenged it on the basis that it was anti-competitive. The courts rejected them on that occasion, accepting the argument that books were not just another product, like baked beans: they needed special protection. Controlling prices enabled independent bookshops to thrive in the face of larger competition; and it meant that publishers were able to produce books that might not have made instant profit but did well in the long term – their serious titles making a bid for the canon. For example, when Faber took on Kazuo Ishiguro’s quiet, contemplative first novel, A Pale View of Hills, in the early Eighties they cannot have imagined he would become a bestselling novelist. The NBA made such deals – and by extension, such careers – more likely.By 1995, the argument for free trade, pushed by Dillons, Asda and HarperCollins among others, was seen as unarguable. The result has been that bigger retailers who can heavily discount books – Waterstone’s, Amazon and, more recently, Tesco – now predominate, leading to the closure of independents and a reshaping of the market in favour of populist titles. Even when a hugely successful series like Harry Potter comes along, smaller booksellers are unable to reap the benefits since supermarkets are able to sell the book for less than it cost them to buy. (The Kilburn Bookshop did not think it was even worth stocking.) The French version of the NBA was abolished in the Eighties but subsequently reinstated when it was discovered to have had a negative cultural impact. But there is no prospect of that here since the issue does not excite politicians. (And why would it? I imagine that Tony Blair, who has reportedly received £5 million from Random House for his memoirs, thinks the book trade is in excellent condition.) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/bookreviews/7523153/Apoca-lit-Now.htmlI also imagine that J.K. Rowling thinks the book trade is in excellent condition.
Just looked this up by chance (some Alan Watts to calm my brain down before I settle to work for the day), but I was struck by what he says about democracy:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjSwsww5SfQ
Originally posted by quentinscrisp:One of them, a teacher of English for many years in the UK reported that education has changed generally for the worse in this country. Things may be better for those at the very low end of literacy struggling to be literate, and if so, of course this is good, but for those not at the low end, literacy has actually plummeted. Nothing to do with immigration, everything to do with attitudes and school agendas.I consider education a separate issue from e-readers. I agree the state of education is problematic. As I pointed out, US education isn’t getting worse. However, the challenges in society are becoming greater. Education isn’t keeping up with a changing world. The problems that young adults today face have to do with unemployment and growing economic inequality, have to do with an increasingly powerful plutocratic elite and a corporatist power structure, have to do with failing democracy and globalization, have to do with environmental destruction and environmental-caused diseases. Kindle is small potatoes, in comparison.Originally posted by quentinscrisp:He made some further comments, which I found to be of interest. Everything now is about ‘targets’ rather than content. He is monitored and if his lessons don’t cater for an agenda of fun and fifteen minute attention spans, he has to change everything to suit the pupils’ boredom threshold. As he said to me, nothing of any value in life has come to him without effort, but the agenda in schools at the moment is that it’s bad to make the pupils make any effort. Of course, this cuts out the bridge to anything that is beyond the fifteen-minute or lower attention span.The attention span issue is most likely true. Research has shown new technology does cause some problems, but research also shows that new technology increases certain abilities. Young people these days are much better at dealing with vast data, sifting through it and quickly determine what is relevant and trustworthy. Young people have a more sensitive bullshit detector than young people in the past.Once again, I’d point out that this isn’t an issue with e-readers or at least not with the Kindle. A video game system, a computer, an iPad, or a smart phone are attractive to someone with a short attention span but not a Kindle. A Kindle is rather boring in that respect. It’s a dedicated reader that can’t even show color pictures. All you can do on it is read and mostly only books. You can’t watch videos or check your email. There are some simple games available for it, but it’s horribly designed for playing games.As for the larger issue of society, we all know that public education and public libraries have been under attack for decades. They are underfunded and increasingly losing funding. They are increasingly run like bureaucracies where curiosity and wonder is drilled out of children or like factories where children are the product being made for the capitalist system.To be honest, I still don’t know what that has to do with the Kindle. If spelling, quality writing, education and love of literature is your focus, I don’t see why e-readers are your enemy. For example, I wanted to read Walt Whitman the other day and within seconds had his entire collection of work at a very minimal cost. Using my Kindle, I’m constantly discovering authors I hadn’t heard before. I spent last night at work perusing 19th century thinkers on anarchism and socialism. In the past, I couldn’t have done that.What I like about the Kindle is that it makes reading more active. Too often, my mind can go into passive mode when reading. Without technology, it can be hard looking up further data or looking up a word. With the Kindle, it just takes seconds (the Kindle allows free Google searches, videos and email don’t work though). Instead of just accepting what an author says is true, I can immediately research it for myself and see if it is true. Instead of trying to remember to look up a definition later, I can immediately know the definition with little effort.I can’t speak about the publishing industry. It sounds like a very complex set of issues. More generally speaking, the problem seems to relate to the problems seen in all other parts of the global economy. I agree that our present system of profit and power are too often contrary to public good. That which increases public good such as quality writing (along with public education and public libraries) are too often undervalued by objective measures of modern capitalism. The criticisms of capitalism have been made for centuries, and yet the problems just seem to get worse. I don’t know the answers.It’s true e-readers are part of the larger problems of the capitalist globalization. Many companies that publish and sell books have become immensely profitable and so have great influence over society. But that is true of all of society. All of the internet, all of technology, all of modern society is part of the problem.I think of all of this in the way Chomsky thinks about it. He is an anarchist, but he is also a gradualist. Even though he thinks concentrated power is problematic, he doesn’t see as a potentially good thing for an anarchist violent revolution taking down the state. He sees within the present system opportunities to build the groundwork for future anarchist solutions.So, yes Kindle is part of the problem but we all are part of the problem. I have a sense of hope (however minor) that benefit can result from e-readers and related devices making knowledge more widely, more easily and more cheaply available. Many of the revolutions going on around the world right now and in the recent past are directly related to new technology that has helped people to connect with one another and to connect with alternative sources of info. I’m reminded of a guerrilla militant group whose leader used a laptop in the jungle where he was hiding to report on his group’s fight and captured international attention to his cause.It’s all a mixed bag. Some things are improving, somethings getting worse. Some opportunities are increasing, some are being lost. It’s a changing world. I don’t know where it’s heading, but my lack of knowledge doesn’t lead me to be pessimistic in reaction. It’s a crazy experiment, no doubt.You, however, apparently do feel more pessimistic. As a generally pessimistic person, I fully sympathize. I have no rational way to disprove your pessimistic response on this issue. I don’t think any of us has a privileged position, a clear view of what is going on in the world. Even the powerful probably don’t grasp the complexities at hand.My pessimism is more general. Either civilization collapses or it doesn’t. Like it or not, we are cursed to live in interesting times. Meh 🙂
I will actually try to address points in more detail later. For now:Kindle may be small potatoes, but I suppose I feel about it something analogous to what I felt when all the trees were cut down outside the Spar near where I used to live. That too was small potatoes, but I felt like something had been violated. Again, it was a decision made by some distant person who didn’t really care.But surely, if Kindle is small potatoes, me and my blog are smaller potatoes still?Now, actually, if we want to look at positives for the Kindle, for me this is one that I probably haven’t even mentioned: The possibility that fewer trees will be cut down as a result.Maybe we can come to that later.I suppose I can give three tiers to my dislike of Kindle:1.) Personal dislike as a reader. I find them physically – and I suppose in some way psychologically – repulsive as objects.2.) I’m suspicious of the cultural repercussions. We don’t really know what these will be yet, but this ‘tier’ breaks down further into a number of weaknesses in e-books, such as the possibility of books vanishing like soap bubbles (paper books are more enduring), and the fact that e-books require the intermediary of a corporate technological infrastructure.3.) When I express my dislike of Kindle, it’s generally treated as something I should be persuaded out of at all costs, which tends to confirm me in the previous two points.I would say I’m open-minded (I think I am). The first point is obviously personal. The second is speculative, but I don’t think it’s wildly speculative. If it were not for the third point, I’d feel much more open and flexible about the second.Okay, I’d better get back to work. More later, I suppose…
Thanks for a really interesting post and comment thread – although the comment thread is now so long that I could not read through everything (I’m supposedly working, after all..)To me, that very fact is relevant for the post’s topic. As we know, in the information age, attention is the scarcest resource.I read less books that I used too – by an order of a magnitude, actually. Yet, I read many more words than I used to. They’ve become more floating, more disconnected, less epic, less coherent, scattered across E-mails, blog posts, comments, chat threads.I don’t own a Kindle, but I’m considering getting one – to see if the Kindle can sort of bridge that gap, combine the availability, findability, subscribability of the online words with the coherence of books.
Hello. Thanks for commenting.Originally posted by hallvors:Thanks for a really interesting post and comment thread – although the comment thread is now so long that I could not read through everything (I’m supposedly working, after all..)To me, that very fact is relevant for the post’s topic. As we know, in the information age, attention is the scarcest resource.I have found that with the internet I tend to skim things rather than really concentrate on them. For me, at least, there’s a different psychology and physical experience to reading things on the internet. There’s always the possibility of being distracted by a new e-mail, or a link somewhere, etc. My reading definitely suffered as a result of the internet for many years. I think it’s getting back on course now because I became aware that it was suffering and made a point of switching things off, not worrying about e-mail and reading books from start to finish. (Incidentally, getting back into reading has been very good for me; I recommend it.) The skill of digesting thoroughly is one thing that the internet seems to erode.Ben has pointed out that the Kindle is less a threat to the attention span in this way than the internet. I suppose that’s true.I think it’s possible for things to make a difference. I realise that that might sound like an obvious statement, but if one has a fatalistic attitude it leads to the belief that nothing makes any difference. For instance, to be topical, my impression is that the rise of Rupert Murdoch as a media mogul has had a far-reaching bad influence. If I’m slightly reluctant to shrug my shoulders and just say, “It’s all one in the end”, it’s because I do believe that things can make a difference. I might be wrong, of course, as to the kind of difference that will be made, but I’m especially wary of those who wish to monopolise and represent themselves as doing so for the sake of the people.I should point out that I know that Kindle is here now, and there’s not much I can really do about that. But Murdoch was ‘here now’ at some point, too, and that didn’t stop opposition to him. With any luck, the inevitability of his empire is now losing its grip.It might be thought that it’s unfair of me to compare Kindle and Murdoch. In as much as they are both huge influences in the spread of information, I don’t think it is. Kindle is new, of course, and we still have to see quite what the nature of that influence will be.Slightly tangentially, in case anyone reading this is interested, there is a short story that made a small-yet-big difference to me when I read it – a story, in fact, about the very nature of making a small-yet-big difference. It’s by Akutagawa Ryuunosuke, it’s called ‘The Garden’, and it’s in the following anthology:http://www.alibris.co.uk/search/books/qwork/521412/used/Autumn%20Wind%20and%20Other%20Storieshttp://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1146862.Autumn_Wind_and_Other_Stories
Matt Cardin’s name came up earlier, I believe. Here’s a very interesting post he’s written not about Kindle, but about the internet, memory, literacy, etc., which seems relevant and offers possibly a different perspective on some of what’s been discussed here:http://theteemingbrain.wordpress.com/2011/07/17/the-google-effect-new-evidence-of-the-internets-impact-on-brain-and-memory-recalls-platos-ancient-warning/
Matt has a good point there in his article, or several really. To me it speaks to my feeling that information technology, or perhaps more accurately “literary technology”, is most useful and enjoyable in its capacity as an imaginative tool as opposed to an archival one.The archival abilities, however integral I find them as a quickly accessed library, do offer up that trap of making it too easy to rely on tech instead of one’s own faculties. Add to that that when looking up a reference online, or anywhere really, you come upon that age-old philosophical quandry: are you reading an objective account of something, or is it merely the appearance of a historical account that you are seeing?
More soon, for now, this:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhGF8a1HwP8
Originally posted by quentinscrisp:I think it’s possible for things to make a difference. I realise that that might sound like an obvious statement, but if one has a fatalistic attitude it leads to the belief that nothing makes any difference. For instance, to be topical, my impression is that the rise of Rupert Murdoch as a media mogul has had a far-reaching bad influence. If I’m slightly reluctant to shrug my shoulders and just say, “It’s all one in the end”, it’s because I do believe that things can make a difference. I might be wrong, of course, as to the kind of difference that will be made,I believe such things make a difference. However, correlations and causations aren’t always clear. From my perspective, the data about e-books isn’t clear and so isn’t conclusive whereas the issue of Murdoch is, at this point, very clear and very conclusive. People have been reporting in great detail about Murdoch and associates for years. The disagreements in relation to Murdoch generally come down to whether one knows (or wants to know) the info that has been reported or one would rather remain ignorant. Originally posted by quentinscrisp:but I’m especially wary of those who wish to monopolise and represent themselves as doing so for the sake of the people.I agree about monopolies (and semi-monopolies). It’s the greatest failing of modern capitalism of the “free trade” variety. My point would be that I don’t see e-book publishing as being any more monopolized than physical book publishing. An e-book can be published by anyone, even by the author, at a very low cost. The author can entirely sidestep the traditional publishing (semi-)monpolies. An e-book can be made in many formats and can be read on numerous devices, some that aren’t controlled at all by any major corporation (you could build your own computer by hand to use for reading e-books).Also, you can print an open format e-book (such as anything in the public domain) on your home printer. This technology will increase in the future where home printers will even bind books. You can get a book printed and bound at a photcopy/printing store.
Originally posted by quentinscrisp:Matt Cardin’s name came up earlier, I believe. Here’s a very interesting post he’s written not about Kindle, but about the internet, memory, literacy, etc., which seems relevant and offers possibly a different perspective on some of what’s been discussed here:http://theteemingbrain.wordpress.com/2011/07/17/the-google-effect-new-evidence-of-the-internets-impact-on-brain-and-memory-recalls-platos-ancient-warning/I wrote a comment on that post.http://theteemingbrain.wordpress.com/2011/07/17/the-google-effect-new-evidence-of-the-internets-impact-on-brain-and-memory-recalls-platos-ancient-warning/#comment-18089And on a related post by Cardin.http://theteemingbrain.wordpress.com/2010/02/02/google-ceo-worries-that-google-is-making-us-stupid/#comment-18093To a much earlier post by Cardin, I wrote a post in response.http://benjamindavidsteele.wordpress.com/2009/07/31/my-brain-on-google/
Originally posted by quentinscrisp:Kindle may be small potatoes, but I suppose I feel about it something analogous to what I felt when all the trees were cut down outside the Spar near where I used to live. That too was small potatoes, but I felt like something had been violated. Again, it was a decision made by some distant person who didn’t really care.But surely, if Kindle is small potatoes, me and my blog are smaller potatoes still?All of life is small potatoes. That is my pessimistic side speaking.To be more specific, I meant two things in speaking about issues that are small potatoes. There is the objective size of the problem or rather the number of people it impacts. And there is the issue of certainty. The second part maybe is what I didn’t clarify well enough.When it comes to speculation about social issues, I feel a need to see clear data and objectively (scientific even) verified correlations. You bring up a lot of good points, but the concrete relationship of those issues to Kindle isn’t clear to me. Even though the larger issues aren’t small potatoes, speculating about diverse possible connections seems like smaller potatoes (i.e., less significant in terms of what I feel capable of making sense of). I’m not afraid of speculation and can be quite prone to it. Even so, I find too much speculation to be frustrating because speculation can go in so many directions. I need data to ground debate.Originally posted by quentinscrisp:1.) Personal dislike as a reader. I find them physically – and I suppose in some way psychologically – repulsive as objects.I assumed a personal component, of course. We all come from personal experience and observations, personal beliefs and values. However, I must admit that I feel little personal like or dislike about e-readers as objects. I’ve always owned lots of books, but I’ve never been one to fetishize books as aesthetic objects (except when the book, such as an art book, has aesthetics as central to the subject of the book). I just read a book. It doesn’t matter to me if it’s a cheap paperback or a high quality hardback (actually, I do care as far as the latter tends to be more expensive). I only care about the words in the book, an attitude I held long before owning a Kindle, long before owning even a computer.Originally posted by quentinscrisp:2.) I’m suspicious of the cultural repercussions. We don’t really know what these will be yet, but this ‘tier’ breaks down further into a number of weaknesses in e-books, such as the possibility of books vanishing like soap bubbles (paper books are more enduring), and the fact that e-books require the intermediary of a corporate technological infrastructure.I’m also suspicious of cultural repurcussions of everything. I just, for some reason, don’t see a particular reason to single out the Kindle. Much of society seems fucked up to me. We don’t really know anything about the future nor have we ever known anything about the future. Generally speaking, I do advocate caution because of this ignorance (precautionary principle), especially when dealing with large complex systems that are hard to predict (such as ecosystems and the biosphere).Actually, e-books don’t “require the intermediary of a corporate technological infrastructure”, although so e-reader companies do operate that way to varying degrees. Nonetheless, all of the public domain books are more safeguarded than ever before in history. As such, I don’t see it likely that e-books would just disappear. There are too many different type of devices with too much redundancy. A Kindle stores books both locally and in the cloud. If the 3G is off, Amazon or a hacker or catastrophe couldn’t alter the local data. I also have non-Kindle e-books on my home computer which are entirely locally stored on my hard drive. There are billions of devices and servers all over the world that are independently storing data, including e-books.Originally posted by quentinscrisp:3.) When I express my dislike of Kindle, it’s generally treated as something I should be persuaded out of at all costs, which tends to confirm me in the previous two points.That is true of lots of things. Anytime I publicly declare a significant or strong position on the internet, it’s not unusual that there will be someone who will treat it “as something I should be persuaded out of at all costs” or who will in one way or another claim I am wrong, immoral or stupid for holding such a position. That is just the internet where you are more likely to meet diverse views than you would in normal life.As I pointed out, my response was to your strong emotions. It would be like me saying that I loathe horror writing and small press publishing, and then went on to argue why those who support such things are wrong and part of the problem of modern society. Have you considered many people might be responding as much or more to your expressed emotion than to your views on Kindle?Originally posted by quentinscrisp:I would say I’m open-minded (I think I am). The first point is obviously personal. The second is speculative, but I don’t think it’s wildly speculative. If it were not for the third point, I’d feel much more open and flexible about the second.Yes, personal. Yes, speculative, whether wildly or not. Yes, I’m sure you would feel more flexible if not for people’s response, maybe as other people might feel more flexible if not for your response. I know that I’ve at times taken emotionally strong positions that have emotionally polarized people with whom I’m trying to communicate. Just saying. 😉
I should clarify a point.I said that I don’t fetishize books as aesthetic objects. This doesn’t mean I have no aesthetic appreciation of books as objects. This doesn’t mean I judge those who I perceive as fetishizing books as aesthetic objects. And this doesn’t mean I don’t fetishize other things as aesthetic objects.Mike has a more fetishizing view of the books he collects. That makes sense as he is collecting them partly for their monetary value. He usually refuses to write notes in any of his books. For me, a book is a purely functional object. The value isn’t physical. I have more aesthetic appreciation for the well written sentence than for the well-bound book.Other things I do fetishize as aesthetic objects. I have a love for pendants. I have one particular pendant that I always wear and it has fetish value to me. I’ll leave alone the discussion of sexual fetishes.I don’t know what I’m precisely getting at, but this seems to point to a distinction between you and I. I don’t love or loathe physical books as objects. And I don’t love or loathe e-readers as objects. I’m more or less indifferent to this aspect of the reading experience. When comparing the advantages of the two, my comparison is mostly based on functionality. For example, more extensive notes are easier to take with a Kindle, but skimming a book is much easier with a bound book.To many people, unlike me, a book is symbolic of an era. People have been printing bound books for centuries. It’s changed greatly over time, but there was a sense of books being at the core of Western Civilization. This is true. I would just point out that the same could be said for horse-drawn wagons. This past century has been a time of one era ending and a new era beginning. Such times of change are uncertain. There is sadness about what might be lost and fear of what might take it’s place. That is understandable. I just don’t have it in me to worry about such things. I don’t lack loathing. Maybe it’s for the reason of excess loathing that I’m unable to focus my loathing on something so specific as a Kindle.
Hello Ben.Once again it’s early in the morning, and there’s no way I’ll have time to respond to everything today, so a few, possibly disparate, thoughts:This is from your article:To me, books and the internet are complementary. I just love information and language, and it doesn’t matter to me about the format. I can skim information very quickly across multiple websites and I can sit for hours reading a massive book. Both are useful and enjoyable.If books and the internet are complementary, that’s fine by me. If e-books and hard-copy books are similarly complementary, that’s also fine by me.I mean, I want to be wrong about the negative things that I have outlined above. What you’re saying at the very least is that – if I’m correct in my reading of it all – e-books are not a threat to literacy, not a threat to good literature and not a threat to writers. If so, then I can very happily stop thinking about it. There is also the question of the physical books that I fetishise. Yes – it is important to me whether or not books remain in the world. There’s really been very little that’s kept me going in my life in the way that books have.Now, I do realise that the world doesn’t revolve around me, so in one sense the survival of physical books is something I place secondary to the things I’ve mentioned in the above paragraph. After all – there’s too much to say here than I can really say at the moment.Here’s another thought: in a way transitional times are the most interesting of all, but there’s a particular aesthetic problem that I find unbearable with our particular transitions at present. For instance, I hate the idea of robots (as in, household robots, etc). However, if I imagine them in the context of a world into which they have settled, they become more aesthetically acceptable to me. Now, what I imagine is probably nothing like what the reality will be anyway, so it may be ridiculous that it should soothe me. However, similarly with e-books – at this stage they are very primitive. If e-books were actually like holographic snowflakes of text, I might find them attractive, and they might gain a sense of magic for me. But I suppose with technology I am mainly impressed by two things – elegant simplicity, and magical complexity. I suppose the in-between stage becomes attractive when it is past for its ‘retro’ value.It’s not as if I’m never amazed, for instance, by the computer I am currently using and all that it connects me with, but I certainly allow myself to be suspicious of technology, as you will have noticed, and I am all too aware that what at first appears a gain might not be at all. I don’t want to be unreflective about this, or simply to rush forward with the mass of people. When I was young (a child), there were basically two new items of technology to deal with: The personal computer (people seem to forget that the personal computer has come to the world in two waves), and the video cassette recorder. Both of these were exciting to me. This will seem odd to people in the 21st century, but when we first got a VCR, I couldn’t believe it, and I wasn’t the only one. There’s an episode of The Young Ones where they get a VCR, and everyone, when learning the news, says, incredulously, “Have we got a video?!” That’s exactly what it was like. Thinking about that, it might seem hard to escape the conclusion that my attitude towards technology has changed with age, as in, simply because of age. I don’t know. Anyway, it’s changed. But I think I notice most that it’s areas where pressure is felt that I’m least comfortable. For instance, I like digital cameras, and can weigh up the advantages between them and the old kind without much anxiety, but no one is telling me that I must get a digital camera if I don’t want to drop off the face of the Earth. Maybe that’s similar to your own feelings with e-books and printed books. But I can at least understand if there’s a photographer who thinks that the advent of digital cameras has ruined everything because of x,y and z. I don’t think, for instance, “In the name of progress, this person must be silenced.” I am interested in hearing what any such people might say.And in terms of singularities, I’d prefer we were racing for one that wasn’t just a kind of supernova of all the questionable ‘benefits’ of a technological rat-race.
I have two thoughts.I was thinking about aesthetics. You mentioned the idea of robots settling into the world, becoming a part of the world. Life is like that. New things settle and become the new norm. Generations grow up knowing nothing else.I live on the second floor of a house. Directly outside my window are numerous telephone poles and wires, but I rarely ever notice them. In my entire life, there has always been telephone poles and wires. If I step back, I can imagine how they could be perceived as ugly by people when they first were put in place. But now they are simply a part of the world. I live next to an alley. Looking up the alley, I can see all the wires strung across and it actually looks beautiful in a way, almost quaint in this day of wireless everything, almost quaint in the way old windmills look quaint.Even the early computers look quaint. There is a beauty to those first massive computers with all their lights and knobs. Part of the beauty is similar to the beauty of a story. Those first computers were a symbol of possibility, of progress.Have we become too cynically jaded to still feel inspired by the future? Will a Kindle ever be looked upon as quaint, as almost innocent in its dedicated e-reader simplicity?The other thought I had related to your example of digital cameras and photographers. A professional photographer will see digital cameras differently than a hobby or casual photographer. That does seem to be comparable to you as a professional writer in relation to e-books.My own version of this is the self-pay stations at the ramps where I work. The recent ramps they’ve built are operated by machines entirely, but I’m working in one of the older ramps where only some of the lanes are self-pay. I, the human, am already obsolete. As a cashier, I’m the walking dead. I serve almost no practical purpose. I’m merely keeping the seat warm.It’s true that a machine lacks the human touch and the machines are far from being perfected. I still serve some purpose. Someone has to answer questions and deal with the machines when they break, but this won’t always be the case. In the future, the machines will probably answer questions and the machines will be so dependable that they rarely break (or maybe there will be another machine that will fix them).I’m not worried. By the time the machines take over, we’ll all have computer chips in our brains and we will have robotic body parts (some people already have such things). If the Kindle required me to directly jack into it with my brain, then I’d worry and my worries would be far beyond aesthetics.
Originally posted by JohnRenard:To me it speaks to my feeling that information technology, or perhaps more accurately “literary technology”, is most useful and enjoyable in its capacity as an imaginative tool as opposed to an archival one.I’ve sometimes wondered how healthy non-oral literature is. It’s like listening only to recorded music rather than live music, in a way. But actually, as a writer, that’s what I deal in – recorded music.
Originally posted by MarmaladeINFP:I’m not worried. By the time the machines take over, we’ll all have computer chips in our brains and we will have robotic body parts (some people already have such things). If the Kindle required me to directly jack into it with my brain, then I’d worry and my worries would be far beyond aesthetics.I suppose, one way or another, what I’m worried about is being forced to have a computer chip in my head, and people not understanding why I’m resisting something that’s a cool as Nike shoes or something.Kindle may not be that thing, but…Actually, I don’t know if I can explain this succinctly. I’ll try.I first read Alan Watts in… 2006. I’ve been listening to a lot of his stuff on YouTube recently in my teabreaks. I seem to be pretty much in sympathy with where he’s coming from, and I think he expresses himself well. Also, he doesn’t seem to have a guru aura (unless it’s subtle), which to me is a plus. This kind of thing:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mATfJfmKrPc&feature=relatedI don’t agree with everything he says though. I mean, that’s almost an embarrasing statement to make, as if it didn’t go without saying (I’m not sure I’ve ever met two people who totally agree with each other) and… that kind of thing. It’s a bit like when people feel they have to explain, “I’m not religious, but I quite like gospel music,” or something. Not the same in content, just this nervousness people have about being seen as associated with particular worldviews etc., even though they are just themselves anyway and there’s no reason to be nervous about that, or no extra reason in terms of what they associate themselves with.Sorry – tangent.I don’t agree with everything he says, and I’ll come to that.I associate much of what he says though with an idea that has stuck with me (not entirely new to me, but newly focused), since my recent reading of Clock Without Hands by Carson McCullers. This idea, as it comes to me from that reading, is that to face one’s own mortality is an absolute moral imperative. I’m going to spoil the plot now:Malone is dying of leukemia but is in denial. His friend, Judge Crane, is in denial about various different things, most notably racial integration in the southern states. Lots of things happen, etc., etc., Malone is invited to an informal meeting at which the Judge is also present, to discuss how to get rid of Sherman, the black kid who has moved into a white neighbourhood. It’s decided someone has to bomb him. Malone gets the shortest straw. But he refuses. Why?He says – for the first time admitting it publicly, and, effectively, for the first time admitting it to himself – that he is going to die. Therefore he is concerned about his immortal soul. Therefore he refuses to do it.I have to say I found this immensely moving. Accepting your own mortality is a moral imperative. I suppose we all accept it to different levels, if we do at all.But one key thing for me here was that Malone has to face his mortality because he is concerned about his immortal soul. This is a vital paradox that I believe few people understand.There’s really no way I can explain this briefly, if at all, but this is closer to my attitude than what I pick up from Alan Watts. There is such a thing (potentially) as integrity, and integrity needs a soul or self. The difficulty humans face is in knowing when they are denying their mortality and knowing when they are doing what they should and defending their integrity and their ‘immortal soul’ – in knowing the difference.Certainly, if it gets as far as computer chips in the brain, I think any integrity has probably been pretty much violated.I don’t know if all this is a bit heavy for small Kindle potatoes, but it’s just what’s most naturally been on my mind in this discussion. Am I defending my integrity, or am I denying my mortality?That’s what I ask myself.
Oh, I see, the link is not about Garrison Keillor.Just had a look. It does look interesting, thanks. I shall read it thoroughly later.
In one of Matt Cardin’s posts, he shed an article link in response to one of my comments. I thought it might interest you.http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2011/06/morozov-web-no-utopia-twenty-years-short-history-internet/I was thinking of one other thing that reminded me of you. In ‘Homegrown Democrat, Garrison Keillor mentioned a detail about his career. It relates to your comment about writing and the oral tradition.”Early in my career, I wrote stories for The New Yorker living in a rented house on a farm in Stearns County, working in a tiny bedroom on an Underwood typewriter on a desk made of a 3⁄4-inch plywood slab set across two old filing cabinets, sat and tapped away for hours, looking out at the farmyard and old red barn and silo, and tried so hard to please New York that it queered my style and I had to go back to radio to learn to talk straight.”Written language probably does undermine oral storytelling. Few people grow up with someone telling them stories that aren’t just being read out of a book. Keillor is the last oral storyteller nationally heard in the US.
Originally posted by MarmaladeINFP:I’ve often been concerned about my immortal soul. My greatest fear is that there actually is an afterlife. This life I’m living is bad enough. Just take the suffering (the fears, the worries, the loneliness, the ignorance, the despair, etc) of this world and multiply it by infinity. Or if there is a Righteous God as envisioned by many Christians, I’m fairly certain I’ll be going to Hell. Or if the Hindu’s are right about Karma, I’ll be returning to the suffering of earthly existence. My only hope is that the atheists are right and I’ll be met by sweet oblivion.I don’t know what happens after death. Or, if I do know, then I don’t know that I know. Before we were born, could we imagine what life would be like? (This question is prompted by a recent conversation with a friend.) You’re quite right that the atheist option often seems like the best one, and I expect that’s why it’s as popular as it is even though it’s often presented (even by those who choose to believe in it) as depressing.But I kind of feel that it’s also really just a projection/extension of the fact or feeling that this world is terrible. Originally posted by MarmaladeINFP: Denying one’s mortality seems inevitable until one gets to that point when it can no longer be denied, usually right before death.Supposing that my idea is right, then it would probably be best to think of it as a kind of spectrum. The more one accepts one’s mortality, the more capacity one has to be moral. That would be the basic principle. People can get pretty close to death and come back, too. In a sense you don’t ‘know’ that you’re going to die until you actually do (if you know it then), but you’re always approaching death, and sometimes you approach it quite nearly.Originally posted by MarmaladeINFP:In one of Matt Cardin’s posts, he shed an article link in response to one of my comments. I thought it might interest you.Thank you. While not anything like an expert, I have an interest in the oral tradition, so will take a look at this.
Originally posted by quentinscrisp:has to face his mortality because he is concerned about his immortal soul. This is a vital paradox that I believe few people understand. . . There is such a thing (potentially) as integrity, and integrity needs a soul or self. The difficulty humans face is in knowing when they are denying their mortality and knowing when they are doing what they should and defending their integrity and their ‘immortal soul’ – in knowing the difference.An interesting view. I’ve often been concerned about my immortal soul. My greatest fear is that there actually is an afterlife. This life I’m living is bad enough. Just take the suffering (the fears, the worries, the loneliness, the ignorance, the despair, etc) of this world and multiply it by infinity. Or if there is a Righteous God as envisioned by many Christians, I’m fairly certain I’ll be going to Hell. Or if the Hindu’s are right about Karma, I’ll be returning to the suffering of earthly existence. My only hope is that the atheists are right and I’ll be met by sweet oblivion.Knowing the difference? Well, I honestly can say that I don’t know. Denying one’s mortality seems inevitable until one gets to that point when it can no longer be denied, usually right before death.
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/killed+bookstores/5190410/story.htmlWill probably comment more here later.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/ct-oped-0804-books-20110804,0,3970003.storyFrom the article linked to:publishers could remind customers that, no matter how much pulpwood paper books require, a book’s ecological footprint is far lighter than an e-reader’s, which is the literary equivalent of a cellphone. Kindles and iPads will experience the same pattern of upgrades and obsolescence as iPods, computers, cars and iPhones, so expect to see new models continuously replacing last year’s model until they themselves end up in the landfill. Have you seen photos of China’s smoldering cellphone landfills? Or read about the toxins seeping from them into the soil and water table? Unlike paper pages, how many thousands of years does it take e-readers to decompose, if they ever do at all? Sure, Kindles are convenient, but in environmental terms, they’re the cellulose acetate cigarette filter of the reading world.This is what I expected, too, but I haven’t seen any figures.